Kathleen M. Howard, retired home economics teacher.

A memorial Mass for Kathleen M. Howard, a retired home economics teacher, will be offered at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Newman Center on the University at Buffalo’s North Campus in Amherst.

Mrs. Howard died Jan. 28 at her home in Pendleton after a long illness. She was 73.

Born Kathleen Purger in Buffalo, she was a graduate of Nardin Academy and earned her bachelor’s degree from Buffalo State College. She received her master’s degree from Canisius College.

For more than 32 years, Mrs. Howard taught home economics at School 38 and at School 3 in the Buffalo Public Schools.

After her retirement in 1991, she and her husband, Phil, moved to Indian Lake in Hamilton County.

After her husband’s death in 1993, Mrs. Howard returned to the Buffalo area and for eight years was an active volunteer as a driver and dispatcher with the Food Shuttle of Western New York. For the past few years, she was mostly confined to her home as a result of a stroke.